After his record-breaking feats on the final lap of the Superbike race, Valvoline Honda's Bruce Anstey's hopes of a win at the 2014 Isle of Man TT races will have to wait another day at least after he lost a titanic battle with Gary Johnson in today's Supersport race.
Throughout the four-lap race, the gap between the duo was never more than five seconds and, more often than not, it was less than a second but despite a final lap charge that saw the Kiwi close to within 0.011s at Cronk ny Mona, Johnson was quicker over the final 1.5miles to pip the Valvoline Racing/Padgetts Honda rider by just 1.5s after 150 miles of high speed racing.
"I was definitely trying on that last lap," said Anstey, speaking to bikesportnews.com. "I got off to a good start for a change and kept my head down and the pace up all the way through. The boys did a great job in the pit stop and the gap went from -2 to +1 but Gary was stronger in certain parts of the course and I just fell short."
"The conditions over the Mountain were a bit dodgy on the last two laps and being out front on my own, I didn't know how hard to push. It was quite dark up there and it was wet along the Mountain Mile and it's hard to race in those conditions. I actually thought the race may have been stopped on lap three but fair play to Gary, he did a great job today and deserved the win."
